Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

girl who’d been systematically abusing her for five years. My captain put me on unpaid leave when I started following him from place to place, and he reported me to Internal Affairs when I hit the guy in the face with my baton.”

I looked up at her. Lane didn’t seem like she had the stones for anything except procedure. “What happened?”

“I got ordered to go to anger management classes and the prick sued the department for a fat settlement.” She gave me a sad smile. “At least the little girl isn’t in his custody anymore. Even if he never did see a day of prison.”

“Prison is too good for some people,” I said softly.

“Agreed,” said Lane. “But it’s not up to us to decide that, is it?”

“Not judge and not jury,” I agreed. “Just the long, often ineffectual arm of the law. It sucks.”

Lane patted me on the shoulder. “Go home. Hug your loved ones. And take a shower. You smell like old meat.”

She went back to her desk, shutting my office door gently behind her.

I leaned back in my chair and pressed my hands over my eyes. I knew I looked tired and wrung out, and that I’d been acting less like a lieutenant and more like a detective who’d gone over the edge. I hadn’t let a case sink its teeth into me like this one in a long time.

This used to be me, always. This shell, with circles under her eyes and too much coffee in her system. I used to snap at the drop of a hat because I would get so tired my were would take over.

Lane was right, much as I hated to ascribe that quality to someone as sanctimonious as she. I picked up my phone and called my cousin Sunny.

“Luna,” she greeted me. “Troy said you’d come to see him and you were in a bad way.”

“I need to talk,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else that conveyed what sort of a time I’d been having.

“Of course,” Sunny said. She’d known me my whole life. She knew when it was serious.

“You know that wine bar on Grove Street, the snooty one that you dragged me to a few months ago?”

“Vines? Yes, of course,” Sunny said.

“Meet me there,” I told her. I needed someplace far away from my usual haunts of Devere Street and Waterfront. A tony Cedar Hill wine bar was just the ticket.

“I’ll leave now,” Sunny said. “I was going to stay in and cook dinner for Troy, but he can fend for himself for a night.”

“He’s been doing it for twenty-five years,” I agreed. Mac was once divorced, long ago, and had been a content bachelor until he met my cousin. I was still trying to figure that one out. “But don’t hurry,” I said. “There’s one thing I need to do first.”

“You’re insane,” Will said when I’d laid out the whole humiliating story of my day. “Absolutely around the bend. In what universe did this seem like a good idea?” We were standing in the light drizzle outside of the federal building, underneath the overhang where the smokers from his office congregated.

“Thank you for your support and sympathy, dear,” I told him. Will rubbed his forehead with his index finger.

“That came out wrong. I meant, I don’t really know what to say. I’m glad you’re all right, certainly, but you can’t think there won’t be a reprisal…” That was my Will, practical to the point of insensitivity.

“I’ve dealt with the mob before,” I said, thinking of my dealings with the O’Halloran family, a gang of caster witches who had done their damnedest to erase me from the planet. “It’s gone bad before, too.” Car bombs, beatings, and when that didn’t work, a plunge off of the Siren Bay Bridge. They were persistent, I gave them that.

“If Rostov finds you again anytime soon, it won’t be just ‘bad,’” Will said. “It will be you, in tiny pieces, as a message to anyone else who tries to screw with their business. And not just you, Luna. The Russians don’t believe in loose ends. They’ll go after your whole family. Sunny, your grandmother, me … anyone who cares enough to get revenge for your murder. If you won’t stop this for your own sake, back off for theirs.”

“I don’t exactly have a choice here, Will,” I snapped. “I’m dead if I don’t do this because then I will never get hard evidence on who killed Lily Dubois and her pack will rip me to shreds. With Rostov, at least, I know what I’m dealing with.” Mostly. Anton’s snarling face flew back to my mind.

Will reached out and ran a thumb down my cheek. “You’re awfully sure of yourself, Luna, and I respect that and I respect you and all of the crap that a supportive boyfriend is supposed to say, but you don’t know. You just don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Neither do you,” I said, leaning over and kissing him lightly. “And you worry too much. You must be getting old.”

“Very funny,” Will told me and then he faced me, taking my hands in his. He pressed them against his chest, so I could feel the steady flutter of his heart under the crisp cotton of his dress shirt. “Luna, I didn’t want to have this talk in the smoker’s area of my work, but I have to say it—I care about you, a lot. More than I’ve cared about a woman in a while. Like fifty, sixty years.”

I met his eyes, their inky depths usually so inscrutable that I could spend hours looking. Will’s eyes were one of the things I liked about him, along with the smile, and the body, and the evil sense of humor. “Thanks. You know how to make a girl feel special.”

Will gripped my hands tighter. “Marry me.”

“What?” I said, oh so coherently. Will’s mouth quirked.

“You heard me.”

“Marry you?” I sputtered. “Will … I … you … How long have you been planning